Pirate Prison

What is the point of thwarting a hijacking of a tanker by pirates off the Somali coast and then releasing them so they can try again tomorrow?

The Huffington Post reports: Special forces on a Portuguese warship seized explosives from suspected Somali pirates after thwarting an attack on an oil tanker but later freed the 19 men. Hours later and hundreds of miles away, another band of pirates hijacked a cargo ship.

19 men? OK. Many nations are spending millions of dollars running warships aimed at interdicting pirates and protecting commerce in the waters off Aden and Somalia. When these forces catch hijackers in process, what do they do? The Portuguese and Canadians release them.

That is insane. Is there no international law against which these men can be held? What's the point of catching them if you then enable them for another day?

Right now piracy pays pretty well, and there's little risk. What we know is these guys are becoming more sophisticated and shipping companies are willing to pay ransom.

So how do we turn this piracy business into a lose-lose for them?

Here is the CIA playbook on Somalia:
1. Appoint Dick Cheney as a special envoy to Somalia. Give him free reign.
2. Get Sylvester Stallone to lead a team of warriors to take out the nucleus of the piracy operation.
3. Install and empower a powerful War Lord to command order among the lawless by any and all means.

The common sense solution - development - seems to be a difficult one. Somalia lacks a credible government and an economy and this piracy thing seems to be working. But where do you store tens of millions of dollars in ransom once it's paid? Do the pirates have credit cards or accounts at Citibank? Do we have any pirate spies infiltrating the operation?

This whole piracy thing defies logic. Still, there has to be a solution. How about a setting up a United Nations Pirate Prison? Or appointing Vladimir Putin as UN Special Piracy Czar? I vote for Putin.